When Moses came down from the top of Sinai carrying the law, his face glowed with the radiance of God. It was as if his skin was made of coated glass and there burning phosphorus was just underneath. He had to put a veil over his face before the people of Israel would or could look at him. Apparently his visage burned their sin-darkened eyes. Usually after not eating or drinking for 40 days, most men look like death warmed over. But Moses came down from the mountain looking more healthy and alive than he had in his previous 80 years. And the vitality which lay behind that light may have been a part of the extension of his life for another 40 years. Moses face shone, because he had seen and been in the presence of the glory of the Lord. It was a result of his fellowship with the glorious Creator. It meant that he bore the special favor of God. That young-old man was filled with the power of God. But initially he didn’t even know that the glory was there. Perhaps he didn’t expect it because it had never happened to anyone before. Besides, he was too occupied with the Lord and his people to be concerned with himself.
Centuries later, when Paul came to Corinth with the message of the Lord Jesus, his face did NOT shine. But it certainly could have, because everything about Moses’ happy face was also true in Paul. He too had spent time with the Lord on Sinai or in Arabia. He too was in daily fellowship with the Lord. He too had a special commission from God. But even more than Israel, Corinth would have been terrified and repelled by a man with the Son radiating from his face. The Corinthians might have run from such a man. But Israel, on other hand, couldn’t run, first because they had no place to go. Besides that – they were just a bit more familiar with the mysteries and glories of God. They should have known that this phenomenon in Moses was not out of the realm of possibility. But Corinth was heathen community before Paul arrived. Less spectacular miracles were appropriate here.
Yet I say again, Paul COULD HAVE had a face as glorious as Moses’. There was and is a glory in both ministries, in both Covenants and Testaments. But it was Paul’s contention in our text that there is more glory in Gospel ministry. “If the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.”
Let’s begin by thinking about the glory of the Mosaic Ministry.
Without a doubt Moses was a minister of a God-designed covenant. I hope you are aware that “testament” is another way of saying “covenant.” Our Bibles outline first an “Old Covenant” and then a “New Covenant.” And when Paul speaks of being made by God a minister of a “NEW Testament” there is the automatic implication that the Old Covenant was also God-given. So there was a former great glory – Moses had been given a covenant from God. That covenant applied to an entire nation. Exodus 19:5-6 – “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.” But as we see the Mosaic covenant was conditional upon the obedience of Israel. And that covenant was broken by Israel almost from the start. Jeremiah 31:31-34 – “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” Despite the disobedience of Israel, the covenant itself was God-given and glorious.
So the ministry of Moses was God-given, but it as Paul says, it was a ministry of the letter. God “also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” Moses’ was a ministry of rules and regulations – the law. Some have the idea that a ministry of the letter must be a terrible thing – but that is not true. Yet, as Paul says, the letter kills, rather than makes alive. The purpose of the law was not to save the sinner, but to prove him to be dead, that he might be raised to a new life in Christ. It was still of God; it was still glorious – good and important. As a school-master it was designed to reveal our need of Christ the Saviour. There is no salvation in obedience to the law.
Thinking about the Mosaic ministry, there was a glory of ceremony and circumstance. Maybe I am old-fashioned; a bit too British and even raised in the wrong religion. But there was a glorious system of ceremony in the first Covenant which appeals to my flesh. There were wonderful things done in the Jewish tents during the feast days like the Passover. And in the Tabernacle, the ceremonies went on and on, and all of them were designed by the Lord. Think back on the ceremonial details of the Day of Atonement. And there was exquisite beauty too in the design of the tabernacle and temple. Then there was glory in the ministry of God’s miracles. Israel had a perpetual night light in that pillar of fire. Then came miracle after miracle in feeding millions of people for 40 years. There were inexplicable, miraculous victories on the field of battle. There were plenty of miracles in the days of Moses, and there was glory to God in each of them.
But all of that has been replaced. Verse 11 – “For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.” The law is as obligatory as it has ever been – but not for salvation. The old covenant has been replaced by a new covenant. And the glory of the Old Ministry has been replaced by a new and glorious Ministry.
Paul is thinking about the Glory of the Christian ministry.
Ours is a ministry of the spirit first of all. Please look at II Corinthians 3:6 and tell me if the word “spirit” is capitalized or lower case? I checked three of my Bibles, but they all suggest that verse 6 isn’t speaking about the Holy Spirit. While verse 3 talks about the Holy Spirit of the Living God, verse 6 refers to our human spirit. In other words, in contrast to the Old Testament, the New Testament ministers to man’s SPIRIT rather than to his HEAD, or making demand on his hands. The only way spiritually dead men can love and serve God is for their spirits to reborn. So today, God’s ministry is directly upon the heart – that is, the dead human spirit. In Moses’ day his glorious ministry was a bit more indirect. The law reached the heart through the mind and will. It was a ministry of the LETTER rather than the SPIRIT.
And in just that way, the New Testament is more of a ministry of LIFE, rather than DEATH. It reaches into the heart of the problem; it reaches into the heart. It quickens, it makes alive, where death had earlier reigned. Jesus said, “the words that I speak unto you they are spirit – they are life.” We might hear Paul repeat those words, but they would sound foreign to Moses. This makes the New Testament ministry far more glorious.
And the gospel ministry is one of righteousness in a different way than Moses’. “For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.” Do you mean that the Old Testament ministry was one of unrighteousness? Not at all. What I think Paul is talking about imputed or applied righteousness. Here he refers to that aspect of salvation we call “justification.” The average Old Testament saint rarely heard of “justification” and was rarely said to be “declared righteous.” As Paul said, they were generally “going about to establish their own righteousness.” But the New Testament saint of God is justified by grace, declared righteous through Christ. What a glorious superiority over the Moses.
And one other thing: Paul’s ministry was one of permanence. Verse 11 – “For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.” Some commentators think the brightness of Moses’ face ebbed and surged up until the end of his life. Whenever he went into Tabernacle fellowshipping with the Lord, there was a resurgence. But it wasn’t simply permanent. I’m not so sure that it lasted longer than a few hours after his last trip down from Sinai. Whichever, the glory of Moses ended with Moses. But the glory given by Christ cannot end, because “He ever liveth to make intercession for us.” The regeneration He offers is as permanent as He is.
So comparing ministry of Moses and Paul is like comparing Kentucky Blue Grass to the Sequoia tree. The first has its place in the world, but it’s not same glory as the second. Why didn’t Paul’s face shine like Moses? Well, why doesn’t the candle shine very brightly at noon on sunny day? The glory is in the Gospel of Christ, not in the man who preaches it.